[erlang-questions] "Symmetrical" function

[Adam Lindberg]

A macro perhaps?

-define(f(Pm, Pn, Expr_m_n), f(Pm, Pn) -> Expr_m_n; f(Pn, Pm) -> f(Pm, Pn)).

So for the clause where the same patter exists twice you would write normally:

f(P1, P1) -> expr11;

And for the other clauses where you need symmetry you would write:

?f(P1, P2, expr12);

Cheers,
Adam

----- "Boris Okner" <boris.okner@REDACTED> wrote:

> This must be a trivial question, and it's probably more related to  
> functional programming in general, rather then to Erlang.
> I have a function f(A,B) for which f(A,B) is ALWAYS equivalent to  
> f(B,A).  So I call it "symmetrical".
> Arguments A and B  are patterns, and f is legal for some of  
> combinations of A and B.
> So I have a (long) list of clauses like so:
> f(P1, P1) -> expr11;
> f(P1, P2) -> expr12;
> f(P1, P3) -> expr13;
> f(P2, P3) -> expr23;
> .......
> f(Pm, Pn) -> expr_m_n;
> 
> %Other pairs are illegal
> f(_, _) ->throw(illegalPairException).
> 
> My problem that I don't want to manually write  clauses like f(P2,  
> P1), f(P3, P1) etc., because symmetrical cases would have been already
>  
> described (i.e. f(P1, P2) is equivalent to f(P2,P1)).
> And I can't use
> f(A, B) -> f(B,A)
> because "illegal"  clause already covers this case.
> 
> Thank you for suggestions!
> 
> _______________________________________________
> erlang-questions mailing list
> erlang-questions@REDACTED
> http://www.erlang.org/mailman/listinfo/erlang-questions